


Five Times Alistair Thought He Might Be Better Off Dead (and One Time He Didn't)

by CeleritasSagittae



Series: Fey Hearts and Faithful Hands [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Alcohol, Character Study, Conscription Ale, Dark Ritual Aftermath, F/M, Grey Wardens, Grey Whiskey, Grief/Mourning, Hangover, I mean look at the title, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Ritewine, Suicidal Thoughts, Templar Training, Vignette, Young Alistair (Dragon Age), but it's mostly angst, look there is some humor in this, what did you expect?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeleritasSagittae/pseuds/CeleritasSagittae
Summary: It's easy, when you're a random nobody, to treat your life lightly.  After all, so does everyone else.Note: Parts 1 through 5 have been written and are being reposted from Tumblr.  Part 6 (Inquisition Era!) of this is planned, but can't be written until I've got my Inquisitor to the correct point in the conversation in her story.  It may be a while, so thanks for your patience!





	1. 9:19 Dragon

Alistair ducked between the bales of hay and scrunched his eyes shut, hard.  He was too big to cry, now, so he wouldn’t.  Apparently bastards threatened babies even when they were in the womb, just because they existed, and when he’d asked Eamon why, he’d just sadly shook his head and told him it was the way of things.

Alistair thought the way of things was very unfair, and wondered why no one had bothered to change it. Couldn’t they see he didn’t mean any harm?  Oh, once the baby was born, he’d be the best big brother (Cousin?  Brother?) that he could, if only they’d let him.  He’d try very hard to, anyway.  After all, Eamon had taken him in just because, and that was better than most bastards got.  Alistair figured he owed it to him, at the very least, even if he hadn’t wanted to.

But he did.

He scrubbed a fist at his eyes.  He was _still_ too big to cry, circumstances notwithstanding.

One of these days something horrid would happen, like a dragon attack or a whole lot of demons, and then they’d be sorry.  He’d grab his trusty sword and shield, and stand between the baby and the dragon, until Eamon and Isolde and everyone else managed to get out of the castle safely, and they’d learn—they’d learn he hadn’t met any harm, but it would all be too late. Because a dragon is very big and very scary, and he’d be incredibly brave, but even the bravest lad can fall to something as fearsome as a dragon, and he probably would.  But that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?  He’d have looked really brave doing it, and everyone had to die at some point, and if he could fall doing something _right_ , it would mean they’d know, even if it was far too late.  And, after all, if it was generally a better thing if he’d never been born, then surely there was _something_ he could do to ease the balance a little bit?

He’d be a bit crispy when they came back for his body, but they’d still finish the job in the Chantry, with all the pomp as if he _had_ been Eamon’s son, and Isolde would cry because he was dead, and he’d died saving her and the baby, and he wouldn’t be a bother to anyone anymore, either, so—.

He wondered whether, if they missed him, the Maker would let him know.  He figured he would—you were supposed to be _happy_ if you made it to the Maker’s side, after all.  And if dying holding off a dragon attack and letting others get to safety wasn’t enough to send you to the Maker’s side, he didn’t know what was.


	2. 9:23 Dragon

Sit up straight in the mess hall.

Eat silently and reflect on the Maker’s bounty.

Do not play with your food.

Eat silently.

Do _not_ play with your food.

_(Don’t snitch.)_

The sisters never said anything about silverware.

He’d been practicing for about a week now, at night when it was too quiet for him to sleep, and he was pretty sure he could pull it off with minimal fuss, which was _very_ important—wouldn’t do to get caught until he made _someone_ smile.  And maybe, just maybe…

At breakfast that morning, after Alistair had scarfed down his porridge ( _silently_ ), he got to work.  After wiping his spoon off with the sleeve of his tunic, he breathed on it to fog it up, and…

 _There_.

One spoon, perfectly suspended from the tip of his ridiculous, stupid nose.  He was sitting up straight, silent as an owl, and _not_ playing with his food.  And now his nose was actually good for _something_ , which it never had been before, so all in all, it was shaping up to be a very good day.

He waited till he saw a couple of smirks from the other boys in the hall, before hastily taking the spoon off and laying it across the bowl.

 _Success_.

* * *

Two days later, and after dinner as Alistair looked around, spoon firmly on his nose, he saw one hanging from another initiate’s face.

It looked rather silly when he thought about it, but he wasn’t about to let that on.

The next day, two more initiates had learned the secrets of the mystic spoon, and Alistair allowed himself to be pleased.  Maybe one _could_ make friends in a place where you were always either training or staring at candles and more than half the words coming out of your mouth ended up being the Chant, whether you liked it or not.

Well, he already _knew_ one could make friends; he’d seen it of plenty of the other initiates all the time.

But maybe _he_ could make friends.

* * *

Of course—classic Alistair, really—it all came crashing down.  Once the number of spoon-bearers reached about twenty, one of the sisters noticed, screeched, and had them all lined up in a row, demanding to know who started it.  Of course, since you had to eat silently, not many of them knew, and everyone knew the last unspoken rule, so he should have been safe.

“Should have been” was the operative phrase, of course.

And it was perfectly natural for Alistair to assume it would apply to him; after all, he’d seen more than his fair share of fist fights and everyone _knew_ you didn’t tell the Knight-Captain who started it—well, Alistair figured it out rather quickly, at least.

But once Sister Honoria informed them that since they could not produce a culprit they would _all_ be scrubbing the floors, three fingers—the first three that had smiled, when he started his grand endeavor—all pointed directly at him.

“Do you confess that you started this?” Sister Honoria asked him.

Alistair knew he’d lost, so he figured he’d go all in and maybe get a laugh out of the deal.  “I’m sorry, Sister,” he said, “I thought it would improve my posture and concentration, and one _must_ be diligent about one’s training…”

Her slap echoed across the room.  “There’ll be none of that lip, young man.”  She pointed a fixed look at the other initiates.  “If I catch _any_ of you playing with your food—”

 _Silverware_ , Alistair thought loudly, but he didn’t want to get slapped again.

“—you’ll be joining him next time.  Now, join the others on the field.”

Alistair tried to slip into the end of the line—he’d forgotten, they were going to hand out _shields_ today—but Sister Honoria’s wiry hand grasped his collar and he was yanked back to place.

She left him with Cook, who was becoming _entirely_ too familiar with him by this point, and soon Alistair was left alone, on his knees on the bare stone floor, with only a bucket of water and a scrub brush for company, while the others—who had thought it was a perfectly good idea, too!—went outside and trained.  And knowing _his_ luck, he’d finish just in time to stand still and listen to the Chanter drone None.

It just wasn’t _fair_!

As he slammed the brush on the floor, the Rules ran through his head again.

Sit up straight in the mess hall.

Eat silently and reflect on the Maker’s bounty.

Do not play with your food.

Eat silently.

Do _not_ play with your food.  (Silverware is a type of food.)

 _Don’t snitch—unless it’s on the bastard_.

There was a passage in the Chant for this, he was fairly certain—something about leading from a life of sorrow—but Alistair didn’t want to waste any effort on trying to remember it, so he went for the easy version:

_Maker, just kill me now and get it over with._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None is the mid-afternoon prayer in the Liturgy of Hours in place in the Roman Catholic Church prior to Vatican II. In other words, just the sort of thing to import wholesale into Thedas for the aesthetics.


	3. 9:29 Dragon

The moment Alistair cracked his eyes open he knew he was in trouble.

Light stabbed into his skull like a knife straight from the forge, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth (which felt as if he’d swallowed sand— _ale_ -flavoured sand at that), and above all, his head…

He whimpered and staggered out of his bunk, praying he could find a chamber pot in time…

_Bad idea._

The jarring motion lurched in his stomach, sending its contents up, up into his mouth, which he clapped his hand over, keeping it in place _just_ as he found the chamber pot and swept its lid off.  The smell hit him physically, and he retched, over and over again, until nothing but bile came up.

And his head still throbbed, as if it had been trampled by a horde of… very tramply things.

 _I want to die_ , he thought calmly.   _If I’m not already dead.  In which case I’d be in the Void, and damn, I guess that means the Chantry was right about a few things after all.  Also,_ ow _, and why does this hurt so much?_

Behind him he heard laughter, but as he cringed, a huge hand clapped on his back and he was pulled to his feet.  Alistair winced at Grigor’s booming voice.  “And he awakens at last!”

Alistair hastily took a step back, feeling his stomach jolt again.

“Come on, a hangover’s nothing to feel shame over!  Though—Maker, who’d have thought a lad built like you would be such a lightweight? You were the second one out!”

“Not my fault,” he muttered, as Grigor led him to the barracks door.  “We were lucky to get better than small beer in the templars.”

“Your templars must not have known how to find the good stuff, then!” Grigor laughed.

“Hardly,” said Alistair, pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to try to get his head under control.

“Well,” said Grigor, “consider this a first step in your new education.”  He opened the door, and the sun streaming in (Maker, when _was_ the last time he’d woken after dawn?) set Alistair’s stomach off again.

“Sorry!” he said, squinting his eyes shut as he retched again.  “Sorry…”

“There, there… ‘Tain’t the first time I’ve had sick on me boots.  Besides, everyone should have a hangover like that at least once.”

“And yet,” Alistair said, “somehow I doubt _you_ have…”

Grigor laughed again. “Don’t worry, lad, we’ll get your tolerance up in no time.  And after that, a pretty wench or two on your lap, and—”

“ _Grigor_ ,” came Duncan’s stern voice across the courtyard.

 _Thank the Maker!_ Alistair thought, hoping he wasn’t _too_ red this time.  Five minutes after hearing about Alistair’s level of experience with women (or lack thereof), and his brothers in arms had pooled together enough money for at least a week at the Pearl, _and_ the apothecary’s bills afterwards.

“All in good fun, Commander,” said Grigor.

“ _Nevertheless_ ,” said Duncan.

“Fine,” Grigor scoffed. “Let’s see if Tarimel has any of his Famous Warden Cures left.”

Tarimel, a weathered looking elf with two of his fingers missing, silently passed Alistair a foul tasting potion, a waterskin, and a piece of hardtack.

“Hardtack?” Alistair muttered, trying to quell his stomach’s protests to the mere _thought_ of food.

“Just nibble on it,” said Tarimel, “with a little water, even if your body’s telling you otherwise.”

“All right,” said Alistair, and for a time he sat there, eyes shut, letting the chatter of the Wardens wash around him because he bet this potion tasted even worse coming back up.

Duncan stopped by to check on him once his headache had turned from “murderous intent” to “probably just maiming,” and asked if he had learned any lessons from the previous night’s revelry.

Alistair grimaced.  “I am never drinking ever again.”

Tarimel and Grigor both burst into laughter, while Duncan’s lips twitched up under his beard.

“I hate you all,” he said, glaring, and stood up to go back inside where it was nice and dark.

“Alistair,” Duncan said, when he was halfway across the yard.  The Commander could be surprisingly sneaky when he wanted to be.

“Hm?”

Duncan handed him an empty bottle.  “This is yours.  We tend to… conscript our drinks when we’re on the road.  Whatever you want—and folk are willing to give—winds up in _here_ , and…”

Alistair shuddered, though at least the nausea was mild this time.

“Knew a Warden once whose always happened to be full.  Finally got the courage to ask her about it, and it turned out she just refilled it with water when no one was looking.   _Not_ that I think you’d require such drastic measures, but it _is_ an option available to you.”

“Good to know, I guess,” Alistair said.

“Remind me to take you to a tavern sometime—once you’ve recovered, that is.”

“Ser?”

“If you don’t know what you like, you’ll throw anything in there, and the results will be… _well_.  Better you learn now—and away from the bad influence of _that lot_.”

Alistair smiled.  “Thank you, ser—I’d appreciate that.”

“Oh, and one more thing—your name goes on the label there, but… there’s usually a phrase that gets added on.  Think long and hard about what you want on there, because once it’s there, you can’t take it back.”

“I will,” said Alistair, nodding.

“Good.  Now go and rest till you’ve recovered, and don’t think I’ll go this easy on you the next time you're hungover.”

“Maker forbid,” he said as he went back to the barracks.

Alistair closed his eyes as he lay down on his bunk, turning the bottle over and over again in his hands. “Royally pissed” was all that was coming to mind at the moment, which was terrible for any number of reasons, but in his defense he’d had a terrible morning.

Well.

Not that terrible, all in all.  Quite pleasant, actually.

Certainly better than the one he would’ve had if Duncan hadn’t rescued him, Maker bless the man.

Alistair met his regular dreamtime appointment with the darkspawn with a smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small beer is a type of beer with a lower alcohol content (frequently less than 1% ABV), and was considered suitable for consumption by all, even children, in societies where the risk of alcohol poisoning was less than the risk of illness due to poor water quality and sanitation.
> 
> For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the older initiates and Templars absolutely had access to stronger stuff on the black market, but Alistair didn't exactly have any friends at the time...


	4. 9:30 Dragon

_Silence._

If he closed his eyes it was as if he were back at the Chantry, when he couldn’t fall asleep at night, still too accustomed to the sounds of the horses shifting in the stable, but no, this was worse.

This was a silence that stretched to his _soul_.

And just as in the stable, he hadn’t even realized what he had till it had been snatched from him—the constant hum of his brothers in blood, friendly presences in the corners of his mind reminding him that he was never alone.  But now?

Now there was nothing, only the distant roar of the edges of the horde—a different kind of family, one he was bound to destroy as surely as they’d destroy him—as surely as they’d destroyed his brothers…  destroyed _Duncan_ …

Alistair choked back a sob. The witch should never have rescued him—no, scratch that—he should never have been on that Maker-forsaken tower in the first place; he should have been at Duncan’s side, if not to save him, then at least to die with him.  He took in a slow, shaking breath, and cursed (not for the first time) his blood—the blood he _hadn’t_ had a choice in, thank you very much—for making even _Duncan_ coddle him, keeping him from his duty.

It wasn’t too late, he knew. The darkspawn hadn’t exactly decided to run back underground.  And whatever reasons the witch had for rescuing him, they couldn’t have been _that_ good.  After all, what could one Alistair do against an entire Blight?

Just… scream and die horribly, probably.  Hopefully taking a few darkspawn out along the way, though.

But no, taking one’s own life was a sin in the eyes of the Maker, even if he was doing his duty as a Grey Warden in the process…  But not even the Maker could fault him for going out and killing a bunch of darkspawn, could he?

No, wait, there had been a lecture on this sort of thing—one he hadn’t exactly paid a lot of attention to, but—if he cared to dredge up half a dozen memories he’d honestly prefer to forget—which he did, because the alternative was thinking about Duncan and all the other Wardens…

 _The nature of the act._  Fewer darkspawn; definitely morally good.  Check!

 _The means to the end._  Well, since he wasn’t going to be turning into an abomination in order to kill the darkspawn or anything, that was pretty clear, too.  Check!

 _The right intention_ …  oh, damn it _all_.  It wasn’t that he particularly _wanted_ to die, it was just…

…that he was currently trying to figure out if there was an ethical way for him to commit suicide by darkspawn.

Alistair pressed his fist to his mouth, trying to stifle the _entirely_ inappropriate giggle coming to his lips.  Here he was, bereft of _everything_ , too cowardly to just up and _do_ it, so instead, he sat here, trying to be _ethical_ about it, as if he were still in the Chantry and had to ask the revered Mother or the Knight-Captain’s permission to wipe his own _bum_ …  It was actually rather hilarious, now that he thought about it (and he might as well think that, Andraste knew he couldn’t seem to stop laughing about it), except for the part where everyone else was _dead_ and he was _alive_ and _alone_ , Maker, so _alone_ …

“Warden Alistair?”

He rose and spun around, hastily wiping his face.  He should have been surprised at the tears he’d shed in his laughter, but really, he wasn’t.

“There,” the other witch, Morrigan, was saying, but Alistair tuned her out in favor of the woman in front of him—the other Warden, still alive ( _Of course, idiot,_ he realized, _she’s new enough you still can’t sense her_ ), just as the witch had said.  

His feet carried him to her before he quite realized what they were doing, and he wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.  He felt her stiffen in his arms, and briefly felt guilty for unburdening himself on her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.  “ _Thank you_ ,” he whispered.

“For…?” she murmured.

_For not being dead._

_For not leaving me._

_For putting up with me—sorry about that, by the way, wouldn’t have been my first choice, either._

_For just… being here_.

“Nothing,” he said.  “Just… _thank you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ethical framework Alistair is using here is the [Principle of Double Effect](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/), the first recorded example of which (at least in Western European ethics and philosophy) was formulated in St. Thomas Aquinas' _Summa Theologica_ and is still used by the modern Roman Catholic Church.


	5. 9:32 Dragon

_Believe me when I say you will not hate this quite so much as you believe._

The witch’s words echoed in his heart like a death knell, the way they always did when he tried not to think about them.  She’d… been wrong, in a way, scant comfort as it was, but he kept snatching at the scraps as they fluttered through his mind, because it distracted him from all the ways she hadn’t.  Because she _hadn’t_ been wrong, not at all; he _had_ to enjoy it, even if it meant shoving all his mind and heart and soul into a corner and drowning it, over and over, pushing himself under every time he surfaced screaming; till there was nothing left but his body and hers and the magic rushing through them, carrying them to completion, surging and binding them together in the vilest ecstasy, and hadn’t he forgotten this?  Wasn’t he _supposed_ to forget this?

 _Yes, idiot,_ the rejoinder came _, but you’ve been drinking so of course you un-forgot it._

Which brought him back to the _reason_ he was drinking, and—Maker, no, he didn’t know which was worse, so naturally his mind had to scurry back from one to the other, like the world’s most indecisive dog faced with a ham and a steak, except the ham and steak were both evil and trying to kill you.

A flagon landed in front of his face and he started, nearly toppling his stool and himself in the process.

“Easy, Brother,” said a voice at his side.

Alistair looked up blearily. It was one of the Marcher twins, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember which one.

“You looked like you needed another.  How are you holding up?”

He laughed.  “Oh, I'm _great_! I always wanted to know how I'd look with horns sprouting from my head!”

It was the wrong thing to say; he knew it in an instant, but he couldn’t help himself.

“As you were then, Brother,” the Warden said, laying a reassuring hand on his for a moment before he withdrew.  “Maker go with you.”

Alistair snorted.   _Maker go with you_.  Wherever the Maker was going, it was pretty clear he’d left Alistair in the dust at this point, if he’d ever even been there to begin with.  He certainly hadn’t been _anywhere_ near…

—No, no, he couldn’t think of it, _anything_ but that night, and how much more did he need to drink before he could start forgetting it again?

Nine months.

Of bloody _course_ , it had been nine months; that was the same night she’d done it, hadn’t she?  Washed the filth from Alistair’s body all the while stinking of _him_ , and hadn’t said a word, not through the whole of the term, let him believe like the fool he was that he could be part of a miracle…

He’d told himself, when the door clicked shut and he was laid bare, that he was doing it for Fíriel—because yes, she’d probably let him die for her, but she’d made it abundantly clear that she’d be miserable if he did that, and the Dalish didn’t remarry, and he’d _trusted_ her…

(Andraste, how he’d trusted her.)

But if there was the chance, even the smallest one, that she could find happiness in another’s arms, that she could forget about him and move on once his soul was ripped to oblivion…

…then Maker, what was the _point_?


End file.
